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| - My husband and I decided to start off our vacation in Toronto with a lunch at Anjappar. I was craving some South Indian goodness and my husband suggested this place, after having been to some of their other locations. (Later though, we found out that this is a different Anjappar from the ones he had been to. Still, it was pretty good.)
The restaurant itself was quite cramped. They weren't too busy when we arrived, though the place quickly filled up by the time we were done. We had to wait quite a long while for someone to come seat us, and later, even longer before we could place our orders.
Their menu was pretty huge and it certainly took us a while to decide what we wanted. We started off with a Mango Lassi, which was deliciously yummy. For entrees, I had the Paper Dosa, which was somewhat of a disappointment, though that's not any fault of the dish. The paper dosa, being extremely crispy was a little difficult to eat or soak into the chutneys. I do have to say that that is exactly what a paper dosa is and this was the first time I was having it - I just had different expectations. The dosa was HUGE - table wide - and it came with a coconut chutney, a mint chutney, and sambhar. The sambhar was good but the coconut chutney lacked flavor. As someone who loves coconut chutneys, this was disappointing. But the mint chutney more than made up for it. I just wished they refilled the chutneys. When I tried to ask for a refill, there was no waiter around. By the time someone came by, I was done with my dish.
My husband ordered the Chicken Biryani, which is his go-to in most Indian restaurants. It was quite authentic by South Indian standards and richly spiced, and even I enjoyed a couple of spoonfuls of the biryani.
We also ordered a plate of Chicken 65 to go. Honestly, the packaging smelled very weird to me - I had a bad feeling about the food itself, but luckily once we opened the box, the chicken smelled fine. Maybe it was just the packaging. The Chicken 65 itself was just okay. Having grown up eating this dish too often, I was disappointed that this one tasted nothing like the one from my childhood. It wasn't bad just not authentic enough.
Overall, we liked this place. I know I will stay away from the paper dosa next time - I would love to try their other dosas (they had plenty of options in the dosa category.
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